Pronunciation is key

Namrata Agarwal, advertising professional, 27
I loved reading since childhood and naturally gravitated towards spelling bee contests in school. Back then, there wasn’t adequate infrastructure to prepare properly, so my go-to resource was books. Most of these contests also test your  knowledge of grammar and literature, so reading widely helps. It’s not about reading fiction or non-fiction, but being exposed to more words. I would also look up lists of difficult words online and get my mother to quiz me. I think that along with the spellings, the pronunciation of words is really important because that’s where a lot of spellers make mistakes. A lot of words are spelt differently as compared to the way that they are pronounced. Often, these are the trick words. In India, we don’t speak English at home as much, so it’s important to learn the correct pronunciation; one can hear the pronunciation on Google. It also helps to write down the spellings; when someone asks me to spell a difficult word, I imagine myself writing it to be able to say it.